CHAPTER ELEVEN
DAPHNE
I didn’t make it to church the Sunday after confession. I had to work and I was disappointed for more than one reason. The first one being that I really did love going to church. It made me feel close to God and like things were going to be right with the world.
The second reason was that I was dying to see the new priest. I kept trying to convince myself that it absolutely was not him…it couldn’t be, but until I actually saw him, it was going to continue to niggle away at me. I wanted to see him so that I could tell myself once and for all that it was all in my head.
My guilt was trying to convince me that I had created a much more grievous sin than I’d originally thought. It was eating away at me and I’d have to wait one more week to find out for certain. I prayed every night that the sound of his voice was nothing more than a coincidence.
I decided to cook myself some dinner after I got home from work on Monday night. I’d bought some lean beef and I cut it in strips and marinated it. I caramelized some red onions, bell peppers, and Portobello mushrooms cut up into quarter-sized pieces. Then I mixed it all together with some fried rice and rolled it in a whole wheat wrap. I took a big bite before I even made it to the table. It was delicious and I was proud of myself for cooking and not eating fast food.
That was just too easy sometimes when I was alone and it was so bad for me. I poured myself a glass of iced tea and just as I finally sat down to eat, my phone rang.
I picked it up off the counter, looked at the face of it and smiled. As soon as I said hello I heard, “Hi, girl!” It was Carla. Carla was my best friend all throughout high school and through two years of Community college. She was probably the only person in the entire world who knew my entire backstory. Poor Carla.
“Hi, Carla! How are you?”
She laughed. “That’s what I called to ask you. You’re the one who moved. I haven’t heard from you in weeks.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve been so busy with the move and my new job.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I could hear the smile in her voice. “How is the new apartment?” Carla had given me a lot of the kitchen items I’d just used to make dinner. When I moved, the only things I took from my father’s home were my own personal things. I didn’t want to give that man any reason to think that I owed him anything
“It’s good. I really like it here so far.” Except the part where I get drunk and decide to give my virginity to a priest. “I even cooked dinner for myself tonight thanks to you and some of the utensils you gave me.”
She laughed again. “You’re so domestic,” she said.
I giggled. “Yeah right…not,” I said. “I’m getting better, though, that’s for sure. I’m actually enjoying what I made tonight, not just eating to stay alive.”
“What about the job? How is that going?”
“It’s good. They’ve all been really nice to me, and I haven’t dropped any trays of food or burnt anyone with a hot pot of coffee yet.”
“That’s always good,” she said with a laugh. “You know, I hate seeing you work as a waitress. You’re so smart. You were the smartest girl in our class. You should be in nursing school already.”
“I’ll save enough to go back in a couple of years. I’ll still be young.”
“Well, at least we don’t have to worry about you getting pregnant and ruining it for yourself,” she said, “Since you’re a saint, as well.”
I felt a pang of guilt stab me in the chest. “I’m thinking sainthood is not in my future,” I told her.
“No? I want details.”
“I’m just saying that I’m no saint.”
“Really? You could have fooled me. How many other twenty-two year old virgins do you know? Especially hot ones.”
“Oh hush,” I said, feeling my eyes fill with tears. Did I really give my virginity up during the act of committing one of the greatest sins against the Catholic Church? She had me thinking about it again. Damn! “Hey, Carla…I need to tell you something.”
“Good, fess up!” she said. I could tell she was smiling. Carla loved nothing better than dishing dirt.
“I lost my virginity.”
“You did? To who? Where? How?”
Laughing, I said, “Whoa! Slow down there. I was angry with my father-”
“He hasn’t been up there bothering you, has he?”
“No. He called and said some stupid things, as usual. But afterwards, I was stressed out. I went and found a little hole in the wall bar and I got drunk. There was this guy there…
“Carla, he was the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen. He had these really pretty eyes with long eyelashes and short, sandy blond hair. And, he also had a killer body to go along with it. He was pretty drunk himself…drunker than me, I think.”
“Whoa! What is his name?”
“I have no idea…”
“You slut!” She giggled. She had no idea that was exactly what I felt like.
“I went to his apartment with him and we had sex. It was pretty amazing sex, too. He was sweet and gentle and all man at the same time.”
“That sounds better than anything I’ve had in recent years. Why do you sound so flat?”
“Well, first of all, you know how I feel about my faith. I was going to wait until I was married…and I blew that on a one-night stand.”
“Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself. You waited longer than most. Five years longer than me.”
“That doesn’t count,” I told her. “It’s not about how long you wait. It’s about saving it for the man you intend to spend the rest of your life with.”
“So maybe this guy is that man.”
That was when I lost it. I felt the tears well up in my eyes as I said, “Oh, Carla! I did something terrible…I think…”
“Oh no! You’re not pregnant, are you?”
“No. I’ve taken a pregnancy test. But I went to confession last week…”
“Girl, you beat yourself up enough. You don’t need to be confessing to some old priest that’s going to look down his nose at you.”
I didn’t get angry with her when she said things like that. I knew she didn’t have the same belief system as I did, and that was alright. We loved each other anyways.
“They have the old-fashioned confessionals, at least, so I didn’t have to face him. But the thing is…his voice sounded really familiar. It took me a bit to figure out where I knew it from. Carla, I think he was the guy.”
She sounded like she was choking on whatever she’d taken a drink of right then. “What the hell? You think you slept with a priest? Baby, your Catholic guilt is working overtime. Did you see him? I’m sure you’ve been to church since you’ve been there. Can’t you tell by looking at him if he’s the same guy or not?”
“I haven’t seen him. He’s new at the church, and I’m new in town. The guy I slept with that night told me he’d just moved into town. He had boxes all over his apartment.”
“Any priestly stuff?”
“No, no ‘priestly’ stuff,” I said with a laugh.
“No crosses hanging upside down on the walls?”
Giggling I said, “No, Carla! That’s so bad!”
She laughed. “Well, I just thought maybe this guy was the devil, dressed up as a priest to tempt you.”
“Maybe he is.” I wasn’t joking. What if that was the case?
“Oh, come on, honey. You’re the best person I know. You didn’t sleep with a priest.”
“Well, I haven’t really told you what practically convinced me that I did. When I told the priest about having sex, he asked me if I’d told anyone else. I thought that was really strange. Why would he ask me that?”
“What did you tell him when he asked you that?”
“I told him that I was too ashamed…but that I thought that it was between God and me anyways and no one else needed to know.”
“So, maybe that was what he was going for. Maybe he could sense you beating up on yourself the way you do. I know that you believe God still loves you, right?”
“Of course.”
“Okay, so maybe that’s all he was going for. He wanted you to know that your whole life didn’t have to change for one mistake. Everyone makes mistakes, honey, even saints like you, apparently.”
“Stop calling me that,” I told her. “I don’t know, Carla. I really sensed he was relieved when I told him I hadn’t told anyone.”
“Baby, you are letting your guilt eat away at your brain. You feel guilty for losing your cherry.”
“Carla!”
“Oh Lord, fine. You feel guilty for giving your maidenhead to a man.”
I laughed and shook my head; she was too much. “Yes, I do feel guilty.”
“So, your head is messing with you because of it. You’ll see. You’ll take one look at the priest when you see him and you’ll know that there is now way you slept with that guy.”
I laughed again and she said, “In all seriousness, he was probably just trying to understand your situation and your frame of mind better. Or, I know how fast you talk when you want to just get something over with. Maybe he just wanted you to slow down and think about it so you can learn from it. That’s what priests do, right?”
“I suppose…”
“Did he give you a stricter penance than other priests?”
“No, it was about the same.”
“Well then, I’m sure that I’m right. Of course, I usually am. You’re letting your thoughts and emotions drive you crazy. You do it all the time, baby. You’re your own worst enemy.”
That much I knew was true. For the time being, I wanted to believe she was right and I hadn’t done anything as horrible as I feared. I changed the subject back to her and we had a twenty minute conversation about her new boyfriend.
Carla loves men. She unfortunately looks for love in all the wrong places…except rectories, that’s apparently my department. Each man she goes out with starts perfect and she thinks, “This is it, I’ve met the one.” Then by the end of the first or second month, he turns into a two-headed sloth and she has to try and get rid of him.
The good news is that she never gives up. The bad news is that she never gives up.